


When We Were Kids

by igiveup101



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Drabble Collection, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-18
Updated: 2014-04-18
Packaged: 2018-01-19 22:24:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 6,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1486303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/igiveup101/pseuds/igiveup101
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of stories from when Jasper and Monty were younger back on the Ark</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Meeting

The woman stepped into the nursery, smiling at the receptionist. “Hi,” she greeted him. “My name is Amy Jordan. I'm here for my son, Jasper. He's young still, only 7 and a half months old. He's wearing little blue booties and a red hat.” The receptionist nodded curtly, typing at his computer, and pointed at a corner.

Surely enough, her son was in that corner, chewing on his hat- and such a beautiful hat; his grandmother had given it to him. With him, however, were a woman and her son, neither of whom she'd ever met before. The two boys were babbling intently. It was all nonsense, of course, just random sounds, but they seemed to enjoy. The woman seemed content to just listen, for the most part. She stroked her baby's back, but that was the extent of her participation. She was well-dressed in a red pantsuit, and seemed gentle. None of this made Amy any more comfortable with a grown stranger being anywhere near her child without her permission.

Just as Amy was heading towards the pair of children, the other woman's son reached out and tapped Jasper on the knee. Amy froze; Jasper didn't like to be touched by anyone by her or Karen, one of the assistants at the nursery. When his father tried to hold him, he's start screaming and kicking and generally kicking up a fuss. The doctors said that it wasn't unusual for someone at his age, but still, she worried.

It seemed the worrying was for naught. When the stranger's son tapped his knee, all Jasper did was gurgle and lean forward. It almost seemed like he was nuzzling the other child. In her relief, Amy decided to let this child see her own again after all. Still, she needed to know more about his parents.

She swooped in, crouching behind Jasper, and clearly catching the other woman by surprise. The other boy ignored her, but Jasper leaned back into her leg when he looked back and recognized her. That was the only sign he gave of noticing her, as he and the other child continued to babble at each other. Amy greeted the woman in the pantsuit. “I'm Amy, Amy Jordan. This is my son, Jasper. It's a pleasure to meet you.” The woman smiled in response, but her child whined loudly at the interruption. “Sorry, do you mind?” 

Amy gestured to the side with her head, gently pushing Jasper up until he was sitting on his own again. The other mother patted her child on the head, stood, and joined Amy on the side. “It's very nice to meet you. My name is Kasey Green, and, as you've probably noticed, that one's my son. He's called Monty. You know, he's not usually so talkative; in fact, he never really talks- or babbles- to anyone besides his father and me. It's wonderful to see him making friends.”

“Funnily, my Jasper doesn't like being touched by most people. He usually makes quite a fuss.”

Kasey tilted her head. “Really? Monty's very physical; he must have tapped him at least a dozen times, and Jasper didn't seem to have much of a problem with it.”

“That's the point; he didn't react. That's weird, right? I mean, I know the doctors said he'd grow out of it, but I didn't think it'd be all at once.”

Kasey nodded slowly. “Same thing with Monty. Still, it's better not to look a gift horse in the mouth, right? I'm just grateful, I suppose.” Amy murmured in assent, and Kasey continued. “I figure it'd be good to keep up what started the change, if that's okay with you. I mean, if they could get together sometimes, so long as you and your husband- or, whoever- are okay with that.”

Amy was quick to nod in response.“No, perfect! I'm sure Brett would love to have Monty over some time. And anyway, I plan to keep leaving Jasper in the nursery in the mornings. Unfortunately, Brett and I both work, so we can't watch him. How about you?”

“Today was the first time we've used the nursery, but I think I have to keep using it. We used to have a babysitter, but she decided to leave the business. I think that the nursery is cheaper, anyway.”

“Yeah, yeah, nice prices.”

“Well then, I'll see you tomorrow?” Kasey asked, already moving to pick up her son.

Amy did the same for her own son, smiling at her. “I'm sure. Have a nice day, okay? Goodbye! Say bye-bye, Jasper.” Jasper gurgled loudly in protest as Kasey started to walk away. Monty babbled over his mother's shoulder before burying his face in her suit. Jasper gurgled one last time and then nestled into his mother's arms. He was asleep within two minutes.


	2. First Words

Amy crouched before the kiddie chair in her living room. She was showing Jasper a picture book filled with animals. Mostly, every page just had a picture of an animal and a title saying, “See [insert animal here]”

“See monkey, Jasper? See monkey?” Jasper shook his head stubbornly. He'd done the same for every other animal but dog, for which he had cooed and pet the book. “See cat? Please, Jazzy, see cat? No? What do you want, then? See pig?” 

Jasper grunted loudly, and out came, “ssssee Mot. Sssse Motty.” Amy sat there, dumbfounded. Where had that come from? 

She tried again, with the closest animal that sounded like 'motty.' “See monkey, Jasper?”

“Nnn. Ssssee Motty.”

Suddenly, realization dawned on the poor mother. “Monty. See Monty.” Jasper nodded and clapped his hands.

“Ssse Motty.” Jasper repeated obstinately. 

Amy smiled widely. They may have been confusing, poorly pronounced, and not what she would have chosen, but those had been Jasper's first real words. She kissed him on the forehead and pulled him out of the chair into her arms. “Okay, Jasper, see Monty. But tomorrow, okay? See Monty tomorrow.” Jasper cooed again, almost certainly not understanding what she actually said. Still, this was a milestone, and she was proud of her baby boy. Now, if only she could get him to eat his lunches...


	3. First Words Part 2

“Say 'Mommy,' Monty. Say 'Mommy.'” Kasey Green sat at eye level with her child from across the table. She and Monty were scheduled to visit the Jordon home in ten minutes, and she was hoping she could squeeze in his first words before then. Jasper had been speaking for three weeks now; most of his sentences were disjointed, short, and grammatical atrocities. His pronunciation made his words barely intelligible, and his vocabulary was extremely limited. Nevertheless, Kasey was _extremely_ jealous. 

She pleaded with her son, who sat staring at her dispassionately. “Say 'Mommy,' please, 'Mommy.'  Monty, look at me. 'Mommy,' Monty? 'Mommy?'” The next ten minutes were spent equally fruitlessly, much to Kasey's chagrin. 

It was just about time to get going, and there was no time left to keep trying. Still, maybe later that day he'd say something. Kasey wasn't the type to let a little bit of disappointment get her down. “Okay, baby, it's time to see Jasper now, okay? But we can still say 'Mommy' after Jasper, can't we?”

Monty smiled and laughed when she mentioned his friend. “Jappah! Jappah!” Kasey nearly dropped her child in her surprise.

“Oh, you have  _got_ to be kidding me!”

 


	4. Mud Pie

When Jasper and Monty were eight, Amy took up baking. At first, whenever she made anything, she'd turn around and see that they were gone. Neither was particularly fond of her cooking. Though she never knew where they went, they always came back a few hours later, faces flushed and grinning.

Amy's baking skills improved over time, as such things are wont to do. Gradually, the children began to stay more and more often when she made food, until they began to appear as if out of nowhere when they smelled something. 

On this particular occasion, Amy was making pie. This pie was a chocolate mousse one, and Amy had high expectations. She was going to serve it at her book club later that day. Unfortunately, there wouldn't be any left for Monty or Jasper, and she didn't have enough ingredients to make a second pie.

Monty and Jasper took it as a personal offense, and decided to take it upon themselves to get that pie as discreetly as possible. Amy had to leave for her job eventually, leaving the pie in the fridge. She told her husband, who worked from home, not to let the kids touch it. As usual, however, Brett ignored her. The two boys took it out and carefully unwrapped the cellophane. Fortunately for them, Amy was a big believer in leaving a hole at the center of the upper crust. She thought that it let the filling breathe, and anyway, it looked nice. Everyone left holes in their pies nowadays.

This was very convenient for the boys, because the filling was all that mattered anyway. They took out the straws they'd brought, having thought ahead, and sucked all of the filling out of the pie. In the rush to get as much filling as possible, they both nearly toppled off of their chairs, but the pie crust was very purposely left untouched. When they finished, they both looked very proudly at their work, before suddenly realizing a fatal flaw in their plan: someone was going to notice that there wasn't any filling.

The two boys sat there for a second, trying to decide whether this was really so bad. They both decided that yes, it was, and they had no desire to be caught. Just when they were starting to panic, Monty had a genius idea. What looked like chocolate mousse? Something they could get very easily from his father's garden: mud. 

They hopped down from their chairs and ran to Monty's father's garden. The garden was far away from Jasper's home, and too near Monty's, so they had to be sure they weren't seen. They made sure of this by scooting speedily along the wall, like spies, because no one sees spies. There must have been something on the wall, however, because the whole way adults were looking in their direction and smiling fondly.

It couldn't have been them that the adults were smiling at, because they were invisible, and anyway, they were _not_ cute. They were big, and tough, and strong. They were super cool. When they finally reached the garden, they were let in by people who recognized them easily; it wasn't rare for the boss's son and his friend to come visiting. This time, however, they completely skipped meeting his father, and rushed straight to the garden. 

Upon seeing the dirt, they realized that dirt wasn't mud, and they needed mud. Jasper, however, said that they could just get the dirt wet, and it would become mud. They stuffed dirt into their pockets, and used their shirts as pouches. When they got what they felt was enough, they started running back to Jasper's place. This time, they decided that they didn't have time, so they took a risk, and didn't use the wall. 

Though several adults stopped and stared at the kids getting dirt everywhere, nobody stopped them. They finally reached the door, and swung it open as best they could. In the process of opening it, some of the dirt from Jasper's shirt fell out, and Monty looked back at him in pity. Jasper shook his head resolutely, and said that sometimes you have to make sacrifices- well, really, he said sackfishes, but he meant sacrifices.

They poured the dirt into the pie through the whole, and followed it with some water. Monty stopped Jasper before he drowned the entire pie, and the two hurried back to their video games before Amy could come back. 

That evening, Amy's book club was gathering around the kitchen. Amy smiled and brought out her pie. The rest of the book club buzzed excitedly; they'd read a good book, and Amy's baking had brought her fame in the club.

Monty waited with Jasper in his room, both of them giggling intensely. In the other room, Amy cut the pie and served the first slice. Monty and Jasper could hear someone spit in surprise, then loud coughing. There was some muffled conversation, and then, “MONTY! _JASPER!”_

 


	5. First Day at School

Amy and Kasey had agreed to take turns taking their children to school, but they both came on the first day. Together, all four of them went up to the person handing out the name cards. Kasey got the cards for both of the boys. Each card had the name of the student in big letters, the name of their teacher in smaller font, and the name of the parents on the back. This was the first time that any of the children were being told which teacher they were getting.

Monty's card read, 'MONTY GREEN, Amanda Woods,' but Jasper's ended in 'Samantha Bird.' Their mothers exchanged cards, silently looking at the names. Both of them knew that there was no way this would go well. Kids were always shy on their first day, and neither of them really knew anyone but each other. They were always hard to separate, and the novelty of the situation would only exacerbate that. The two women looked at each other over the heads of their children, wordlessly agreeing to let the teachers deal with this one.

“Alright, boys, we're off now. Will you two be okay?” Jasper took a moment to look at his mother. His expression was one of some annoyance, but also hesitance. He assured her that they'd be fine, and Monty did the same for his own mother.  The pair of friends was left alone then, the mothers wishing them good luck and giving them each a kiss on the forehead. As they were leaving, Kasey turned around and quickly gave them the names of their respective teachers, pointing out the classrooms. She and Amy then hurried away, hoping to avoid a scene.

They had had nothing to worry about, apparently. The two boys took the news quietly, then continued their conversation about dinosaurs. When it came time to go to class, Jasper headed to Mrs. Bird's room, as his card and Monty's mother had said.

Mrs. Bird was waiting in the classroom as the children filed in. When everyone was seated, she started taking roll. The kids were all whispering, but that was to be expected. As each child responded, she glanced at them briefly, forming a quick first impression. She went through the list, starting at Abernathy.

Eventually she reached the J section. “Jasper Jordan?” She called.

“Here!” She glanced up at where the voice seemed to be coming from, and did a double take. Jasper was sharing his seat with someone. All of the other students were staring at them, and she suddenly knew what they had been whispering about.

“Jasper, who is that next to you?” She asked, aiming for a sweet tone.

“Monty.” Jasper said matter-of-factly. The boy next to him nodded enthusiastically.

“ Monty what?”

Jasper just repeated his first answer, but Monty elaborated. “Monty Green.” Mrs. Bird looked down at her clipboard, reading over all of the names. There was a child named Ben Green, but no Monty.

When she asked if Monty was a nickname for Ben, a child on the other side of the room protested, crying, “I'm Ben!” There was only one Ben in the class, and neither Monty nor Jasper seemed to recognize 'Ben' as a name that belonged to one of them.

“I'm sorry, Monty, but you have to go to your own class.” Every teacher had a list of the other classes and their students, precisely for situations like this. “You should be in... Mrs. Woods's room. Do you want me to show you where that is?”

“No thank you.”

“Can you go alone?”

Monty sighed. “But I'm not going, I'm staying here.”

“You have to go, Monty, you don't have a choice.” She tried to make it sound positive. “Mrs. Woods is a great teacher! She's a lot more fun than I am.” This caused the other students to start crying out that  _they_ wanted Mrs. Woods, but Monty shook his head stubbornly.

“I'm okay where I am, Mrs. Bird.” Jasper said.

“That's great, Jasper, because you're not the one who needs to leave.” Mrs. Bird was beginning to get very frustrated.

“Well, make up your mind! Do we have to go, or don't we?” Jasper asked, clearly annoyed.

Mrs. Bird tried to keep up her sweet demeanor. “Monty has to go, Jasper, you're staying.”

“That's not fair, that you're making Monty leave. Everyone leaves or everyone stays. That's fair, isn't it?” Jasper reasoned.

“Make Ben go.” Monty interjected. Ben cried out in protest again.

Sighing, Mrs. Bird went over to their shared seat and pulled Monty out of it. She started to carry him out herself. “I'm sorry, Monty, but you really need to go.”

“No fair! I don't wanna go!” Monty kicked and wiggled and yelled while Jasper kicked her shin. He pulled her hair until she dropped him. Jasper picked his friend up, and they both glared at her, resuming their seat.

Having hit her limit, Mrs. Bird groaned loudly and called the principal. He told her to send the offending children to his office. When they got there, the principal called their parents.  Monty's parents and Jasper's mother were there as soon as possible. Jasper's mother apologized for her husband's absence, but he wasn't coming.

The adults all tried to convince Monty to go to Mrs. Woods's room, and Jasper to let him. Every time they tried, though, the boys only got more frustrated. Eventually, the adults had no choice but to give way. They didn't want to seem soft, though, because the two kids had behaved utterly terribly, and they had to learn that actions had consequences.

In the end, Monty and Jasper got off with a month of cleaning duty- nothing important, of course, because they were only in kindergarten. From then on, nobody bothered trying to put them in different classes. When they were older, they probably could have handled getting different classes,  even though it would have sucked, but nobody wanted to take the risk.

 


	6. Family Portraits

Mrs. Bird went over the pictures, stapling them to a section of the wall. She'd asked each of her students to draw a picture of their families. As she put up picture after nearly identical picture, she realized that two of them were not like the others. Instead of a mother, father, and child, these pictures each had two children. Mrs. Bird froze, her heart pounding.

It was illegal for any family to have more than one child, to control overpopulation. Something like this was... explosive. They'd caught extra children before on something this stupid and silly. The poor mothers were  always  floated, and the children arrested. They were never more than three, and she always felt so terribly for the poor things.

She stood staring at the pictures, knowing that she'd have to report it like all other suspicious behavior, but dreading the thought. Mrs. Bird turned the pictures over to see the names on the back. One belonged to a student named Monty Green, and another named Jasper Jordan. She certainly knew who they were; these were two of the biggest trouble-makers in her class. They weren't loud and disruptive like some of the children, and they didn't bully other students, but they were always playing pranks. They were, for their age, surprisingly good at their craft. They were clever. They were also, unfortunately, inseparable.

Sudden relief poured through her when she realized that they'd drawn each other. There were no second children; people really had learned their lessons. Still, she' d have to talk to their parents. There was no way to guarantee that another teacher would come to the same conclusion if this incident repeated itself.  She did have to admit, however, that it was pretty cute.

 


	7. The Room

It was a perfectly average day. It was a perfectly average day, and that was exactly the problem. Nothing was going on, and Jasper, at seven years of age, was bored out of his mind. He lay on his back horizontally on his bed, his legs resting on the wall. Next to him, Monty was in the same position, using his legs as a table as he furiously scribbled away on his homework. According to his mother, Jasper was not allowed to say anything until Monty finished. That was the condition for this sleepover.  It was only color by numbers, but it felt like it was taking  _forever._

Groaning, Jasper rolled backwards off of his bed, landing less than smoothly on the floor. He got onto his hands and knees, crawling around the room. Monty looked  back at him curiously. Jasper put a finger to his lips and pointed to the homework. Monty grinned and showed him the completed page. He began to say something, but Jasper shushed him, glancing around the room and motioning for him to join him on the floor.

As soon as Monty was next to Jasper, also on his hands and knees, Jasper put an arm around his friend and brought him close, glancing around the room again. Seeming satisfied, he leaned in to Monty's ear and began to whisper.

“This is super-duper important and super-duper secret, okay?” Monty nodded excitedly. “Years ago, a  _spy_ lived in this room. A super-spy. She was really cool and killed a bunch of bad guys.”

Monty furrowed his eyebrows. “Couldn't they just float the bad guys?”

“No. Anyway, lots of bad guys wanted to kill her, so she had to be able to hide away and escape really quickly, just in case. So all around the room she put trapdoors and fake walls. There's probably a room behind the bookshelf, but we don't have a bookshelf. Suddenly, one day, she disappeared. They never found her. But if we found one of her rooms, maybe we could find her. When other people tried, it didn't count, because they weren't us. We're us, though, and we're a team. We're the best team. Monty and Jasper for the win!” They bumped fists, and Jasper nodded intently. “Let's go.”

Both boys knew that the story was completely made up, because Jasper's father had grown up here, and his grandfather too, so there was no time for any spy. Still, the idea was exciting. They crawled around the room, pressing down at random places on the floor, using a (dirty) plate to try and lift tiles, knocking on the wall. They even looked under his bed and in the closet.

Jasper was checking the wall when he heard a noise and a cry of surprise. He turned to see Monty jumping back, then turning and staring at him with wide eyes. “ What?” He asked. “Is it a  _spider?_ ... I can take on a spider.” Jasper was lying, but he thought he sounded cool.

Monty pointed at the floor, and used a plate to lift a block of tiles. Underneath, there was a dark, square hole. The top of a ladder was visible. Jasper looked back at his friend, making a decision then and there. He began to climb down the ladder.

“Jasper! You can't go down, we don't know what's in there. It could be snakes!” Monty warned him, pulling on his arm.

Jasper shook his head sadly. “I don't have a choice, Monty. I have a duty to my people to find out what's in there.” Monty raised an eyebrow, and Jasper continued. “This is super important.”

“I can't let you go down alone.” Monty sighed dramatically, looking up at the ceiling. “I guess you leave me no choice.” He pushed Jasper's head to get him to start climbing down and started in after him.

When they reached the bottom, they high fived. They would have, anyway, if they hadn't missed. The room was pitch black. The adrenaline wearing down, the boys began to panic; snakes they could handle, but not darkness. Fortunately, Monty had a bright idea. He stomped his foot, and his shoe lit up. He knelt down to take the shoe off, then did the same for the others. He began clapping them together to keep the light on the light.

They began to search the room for anything fun, but it seemed mostly empty. There was a bean bag, and a little desk with a chair, but not much else. Jasper did accidentally run into a trash can, though, and Monty found magazines. When they opened them, though, there were just a bunch of pictures of girls, who were gross, so they threw them away.

Monty suggested  going upstairs and finding some more stuff to bring down. Mostly flashlights, plus food. He put his shoes back up and they climbed up the stairs, Monty slamming his feet on the rungs of the ladder to keep the shoes lit up until they reached the surface.

The two boys rushed into the kitchen, stopping when they saw Jasper's mother. They tried to act natural, to not draw any attention to themselves. Jasper did what he saw on tv and started to whistle, except he didn't know how to whistle, so he just made the  _O-_ shape with his mouth and a high pitched noise from the back of his throat. He 'whistled' the tune to Jingle Bells, and he thought that it came out sounding pretty good. As Jasper pulled two -no, three- flashlights out of the pantry, and Monty grabbed three boxes of cereal and their last bottle of chocolate milk, Jasper could feel his mother's eyes boring into his back. 

As soon as they had their things, they rushed back into the room, Monty returning a second later for some string, tape, and scissors. The pair of friends then headed back down the ladder, armed with flashlights that were already on. When Jasper stepped off of the ladder, he asked Monty why he was still at the top. Monty grinned at him, cut a piece of the string, and taped both ends to the hatch with more tape than Jasper personally thought was necessary. He left a lot of string in between, so it sagged. Jasper's curiosity was satisfied when Monty used the string to pull down the trapdoor. 

Monty then climbed down the ladder, asking Jasper to get on his hands and knees. Confused once more, Jasper did. Monty started to step onto his back, but Jasper realized what he was doing and rolled away. “Hey!”

Monty sighed. “Fine, Jasper, if that's how you're going to be, just get me the chair.”

“Get the chair yourself!”

Rolling his eyes, Monty did so. Climbing onto it, he tied another piece of string to one of the flashlights, leaving quite a bit of string hanging. He took that and taped it to the (fortunately) low ceiling, taping the entire length of the string several times, so that the flashlight hung just so. He moved the chair a few feet to the left and repeated the process.

Jasper watched, fascinated. “Cool.” He grinned, deciding to forgive Monty for trying to use him as a stool.

Over time, the room would become The Room, and be used for many purposes. At first, they just stashed food and comic books, and anything they wanted to hide from their parents. It quickly turned into the place they went whenever one of them was upset, or when they wanted to practice something or rehearse. On the rare occasions that they were forbidden from seeing each other, Jasper would spend most of his time in there. He locked his door so his parents thought he was in his room, and, in a way, they were right.

 


	8. Parent Problems

As time went on, Monty and Jasper started hanging out more and more at Monty's place. Jasper's parents were having some issues- well, they'd always had issues, they just didn't want to put up with them anymore. Monty had lost count of the amount of times that they'd been at Jasper's house, trapped in his room by the screaming match being held outside of it.

For the most part, Jasper didn't act any differently than before, but Monty knew he hated it. For that reason, he never said anything when Jasper showed up out of the blue at the door, or when he stalled on their way back to his place.

On a particular Saturday, Jasper had agreed to come over at 1:30 to work on a project for school. It was 3 already, and there was no sign of him. Jasper was the type to be late, but usually only by 15 minutes, not an hour and a half. If it was longer than twenty, he always called.

Monty decided to give him another 20 minutes. If he still hadn't shown up by then, Monty would go to his house himself. Those 20 minutes passed, and he was already half-way there.

By the time he saw the door, he could already hear the yelling. He wavered before knocking, wondering whether or not he really wanted to put himself in the middle of it. Too late; he was already doing it.

There was a moment of complete silence, then footsteps. Jasper's mother opened the door, a strained smile on her face. “Monty! How... nice to see you. Now's really _not_ a great time. If you could just-”

“I- I really would, Mrs. Jordan, I swear, but I really need to see Jasper. We, uh, have a project we need to work on. Do you mind? I'm really sorry.”

Still smiling tensely, Amy Jordan opened the door all the way. Monty nodded and mumbled a 'thank you,' walking as quickly he could down the hall to Jasper's room. He tried the door and was relieved to see that it opened.  He hadn't even finished closing it before the argument started again.  There was a sheet of metal on the floor by the hatch; Jasper was in The Room.

He opened the hatch and dropped in; the room was small enough that they didn't need the ladder anymore.  Jasper was on the bean bag, listening to music and bouncing a ball furiously against the wall. He was wearing headphones, but the music was loud enough that Monty could still hear it from where he was standing. “ Jaz?” Monty called. It was useless, obviously, there was no way Jasper would hear anything over the music; he'd be lucky if he didn't go deaf.

Monty threw himself down melodramatically in front of his friend, figuring that was a good way to get his attention. He was right- Jasper must have jumped two feet up, his head slamming backwards into the wall. “Jesus!”

“Sorry.”

Jasper turned off the music and took off his earphones, wincing and rubbing the back of his head. His eyes flickered upwards towards the direction of the yelling, but moved them back to Monty. “Shit. The project, right? Sorry, dude, I just- I guess I forgot.” Jasper was a terrible liar, but Monty didn't mention that either.

“No big deal. I figured you did, so I came over.”

“What time is it, anyway?” Monty  told him . “3:30? Jesus, they've been at it since early morning. Woke me up with the fucking racket. Can you believe it?  _I'm_ the one going on about  _them_ being too loud. What am I, 70? Doesn't matter. How've you been? Any major change in the last 20 hours since I've seen you?” 

Monty shrugged. “Not much. You?”

Jasper pointed to the wall, grinning. “I think I dented the wall.”

“Yeah, man, what was up with that?”

“I don't know. I guess I just wanted to see how many times I could hit the same spot.” Jasper lied. “Kinda messed that one up for me, though, didn't you?”

Monty apologized, laughing. “And you came so close to a world record.”

“You know it. What's the project about again?”

“The political situation that led to the Nuclear War.” Jasper groaned. “I know. It's not entirely bad, though. It's almost like someone made it up, the drama was incredible. Everyone was killing and betraying everyone else, and then rebellions everywhere, and then it turns out everyone was lying about everything. It's like a book.”

Jasper raised an eyebrow. “I don't read for fun! I'm not a  _nerd_ , like you are.” He pushed Monty playfully.

“Good thing you don't have a choice then.”

The two stayed holed up in The Room for the next several hours, working on the project on and off,  finishing it by 7:20. Monty stayed overnight anyway.

 

 


	9. Fun with Drugs

Monty's father was in charge of pharmaceuticals and herbs on the Ark. That was fortunate, because Monty personally thought that that was pretty cool. When he and Jasper were 14, they started reading about that kind of thing; they'd spend their free time hanging off of their and each others' beds, noses buried in books. Their parents were glad about it, especially Monty's; it kept them out of trouble, and it was much quieter. Besides, Monty's father had always intended for his son to take his place eventually.

While Monty preferred reading about the plants, Jasper found the drugs far more interesting. Soon enough, Monty could name almost every plant in his father's garden, and Jasper could explain how several different kinds of drugs worked from a neurological standpoint. 

Monty and Jasper were laying on the former's bed when they were 15, reading again. The comfortable silence was interrupted by, “Hey, do you know if your father has any  abuta ?” from Jasper. Monty ran through his father's inventory in his mind.

“ Abuta's a genus, not a species, but we have plants that fall under the category, yeah. Why ?”

“It's the primary plant used in making cissampeline- it's a skeletal muscle relaxant. We don't use it on the ship anymore, but I think it could be useful for stuff.”  Jasper said.

Monty eyed him. “You don't need to make it into the drug to do that, the plant is plenty helpful. Helps with toothache, fertility, asthma, even acne. It's perfect fine in plant form.”

“Yeah, but  wouldn't it be cool to try and make it? Just to see if we could? Just for fun?”

_Who makes pharmaceuticals for fun?_ They did, apparently, because Monty agreed that it could be kind of cool. After a fair bit of hesitation, they decided to do it. They'd gotten away with worse, and anyway,  what was the worst that could happen? It wasn't illegal to play with plants. 

The very next day, they headed into the garden. Monty pointed out the plant species that were of the abuta genus, and they picked a few leaves. Jasper insisted on taking a full plant, so Monty found an area where an abuta species was the densest, digging into the dirt and removing the plant. He was careful to avoid hurting any of the other plants and filled the hole. Jasper arranged the remaining plants so that they looked more natural by bending them more towards each other to fill the gap.  Now it got really important not to get caught- playing with plants wasn't illegal, but stealing them probably was. 

The two teens felt a surge of adrenaline and excitement as they hurried back to Monty's room, with the plant and leaves in a bag they'd brought with them. They spent the rest of the day hidden away in Monty's room, figuring out how to get cissampeline from a plant.

It was difficult work, but ultimately it seemed to work. They couldn't actually be sure; neither of them needed a skeletal muscle relaxant, and they weren't sure how it was even supposed to feel. One of them, neither would remember which, suggested that  they try it with something they could actually  check . After all, if they were going to break the law, they might as well be sure they were doing it right.

As it turned out, they didn't end up stopping at seeing whether or not it worked. The next one they tried, they were fairly certain they did it right, going by its effects. The next several drugs worked fine too. That just wasn't a reason to stop.

 


End file.
